“I gotta kill all you,” a young boy, limbs twitching in the throes of demon possession, eyes wild, growls at his mother (played by Andra Day) in the new Lee Daniels horror film, “The Deliverance.”
This is after he has recently walked backward up a hospital room wall like a demented Spider-Man after being nearly drowned in a bathtub by his older brother, who is also being targeted by a demon.
The film, which chronicles the saga of a family beleaguered by dark forces after moving into a new home, claims to have been inspired by real events, but the wall-scaling and demonic possession are Hollywood embellishments, right?
Maybe … not?
The seemingly supernatural occurrences, which were chronicled by the journalist Marisa Kwiatkowski in a 2014 Indianapolis Star article, “The Exorcisms of Latoya Ammons,” are portrayed much as Ammons originally described them in “The Deliverance,” streaming on Netflix.
Also represented onscreen: The swarms of unkillable black flies she claimed began plaguing her, her three children and her mother after they moved into a rental house in Gary, Ind., in 2011 (the film moves the action to Pittsburgh), and the exorcisms performed by a member of the clergy that Ammons credits with ultimately ending her torment.
Here’s what to know about what Ammons claims happened to her and her family inside the so-called Demon House in Gary in 2011 and 2012.
What happened to Latoya Ammons and her family?
In November 2011, Ammons moved into a rental house in Gary, Ind., with her three children, ages 7, 9 and 12, and her mother, Rosa Campbell. (Campbell inspired Glenn Close’s cranky, born-again Christian grandma character in the film, though she isn’t white.)
Almost immediately, things took a turn for the weird.
Despite the frigid temperatures, black flies swarmed their porch, returning even after the family believed they’d killed them. The family heard footsteps climbing the basement stairs, and the creak of the door between the basement and the kitchen opening — but no one was there. One night, Campbell awoke to what she described as a shadowy figure of a man pacing the living room — and large, wet bootprints when she got up to investigate.
And then, Ammons told Kwiatkowski in the Star article, she found her 12-year-old daughter levitating above the girl’s bed one night, unconscious.
From there, things only got stranger. Ammons said she and the three children were possessed by demons: Her children’s eyes bulged, she said, their faces contorted into evil smiles and their voices deepened unnaturally..”
At one point, the 7-year-old boy locked his hands around his older brother’s throat, and wouldn’t let go until adults pried his hands open, The Star reported.
They experienced the effects even when outside the home, and both boys were hospitalized after speaking in “demonic” voices and then passing out in the presence of their family doctor — at which point, according to Ammons and Campbell, the 9-year-old walked backward up a wall to the ceiling in the presence of an Indiana Department of Child Services family case manager and a nurse (who corroborated this account, The Star reported).
The next day, D.C.S. took the emergency step of taking custody of all three children without a court order.
Were there really demons in the home?
Hospital employees who examined Ammons and her children could not find a medical explanation for their behavior while supposedly possessed, and a hospital psychiatrist evaluated Ammons and determined she was of “sound mind.”
The family doctor wrote in his medical notes from his examination of the boys that there were “delusions of ghost in home” and “hallucinations,” but Ammons’s case was compelling enough to convince a priest in Merrillville, the Rev. Michael Maginot, to investigate.
What does demonic possession supposedly feel like?
According to Ammons, she felt weak, warm and lightheaded while possessed, and her body would shake. She told Kwiatkowski she felt “out of control.”
What happens during an exorcism?
Church-sanctioned exorcisms, which are performed only by ordained priests or higher-ranking members of the clergy in the Catholic Church, are intended to expel a demon from a person who has come under its power, according to the U.nited States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
According to the organization, each diocese is required by the Vatican to have a priest specially trained to diagnose demonic possession and perform exorcisms. They are incredibly rare, though — Maginot told The Star that Dale Melczek, then the bishop of the Diocese of Gary, “had never authorized an exorcism in 21 years” in the role before giving Maginot permission to perform one on Ammons.
According to the Conference, the exorcist must first perform a medical examination to rule out the presence of a mental illness. Then, they must receive approval from a bishop to perform the exorcism.
The ritual itself, which can last several hours, consists of prayers, statements and appeals to cast out demons. It may be performed just once or multiple times, as was the case with Ammons (Maginot ultimately performed three exorcisms on Ammons, two in English and one in Latin).
Were the exorcisms successful?
That’s unclear. The family’s problems persisted after the first two exorcisms, but after the third, which Maginot performed in Latin rather than English, the events stopped.
But there was a confounding factor: Ammons and her mother had also recently moved to Indianapolis. (Ammons was behind on the lease on the home in Gary and used the claimed paranormal activities to avoid payments, her landlord told The Star.) They drove back to Gary for court hearings as Ammons attempted to regain custody of her children.
Where is Latoya Ammons now?
About six months after her children were removed by D.C.S., Ammons regained custody of them, in November 2012. They now live “without fear,” she told The Star in 2014.
What happened to the house?
After the Star article was published, the paranormal investigator Zak Bagans bought the house for $35,000 in 2014 and filmed a documentary about the events there called “Demon House” before having the home demolished in 2016.
Of course, a bulldozer can’t kill the stories — and the house, formerly at 3860 Carolina Street, lives on in Google Street View in Google Maps.
Read More: What to Know About the Real Story That Inspired ‘The Deliverance’
